


to give a man a name is to give him life

by 8The_Great_Perhaps8



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, POV Second Person, Pre-Stream (Critical Role), pov gustav
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 22:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14459526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8The_Great_Perhaps8/pseuds/8The_Great_Perhaps8
Summary: You've really got no idea what you're meant to do with an aasimar that would be frightening if she weren't fussing over her friend ever five seconds and a tiefling who can only say one word.





	to give a man a name is to give him life

It’s a chill autumn day when the tiefling and the aasimar join the circus.

They don’t linger after a show to speak to you and Desmond, they don’t show up early and excitedly chat with anyone. The aasimar walks up while you’re all still setting up the circus, her arm around the tiefling’s shoulders. The aasimar is dressed in nearly nothing, just some furs and straps and bags. She’s got filthy hair but has her make-up applied perfectly, accenting her heterochromic eyes. The tiefling is barefoot, and he hasn’t got the usual hooves. Otherwise, he’s just wearing a billowy white pirate’s shirt and brown leggings, with extremely close-cropped hair in contrast to the aasimar’s long tresses.

“Excuse me,” she says, getting one of the sword-swallower’s attention. “Where is the person in charge here?”

You stand up, hearing that, and brushed off the dust and dirt from where you were hammering in one of the tent’s pitons. “That would be me,” you call over to the pair. “Whatcha need?”

She walks over to you instead of calling across the field. She seems to be near-enough dragging the tiefling along with her, as though he hasn’t got any idea how to walk. He seems to get it done for a few paces, but then he stumbles and drags his feet forward. He seems to be saying something to the aasimar as they walk.

“Hello,” the aasimar says, holding out her hand for a handshake. When you shake her hand, you can feel her strength. “My name is Yasha. This is-”

“Empty,” says the tiefling bleakly.

“That’s all he says, at least,” Yasha adds. “‘Empty’, ever since I met him.”

“Hm,” you say, stroking your chin. “And, what, do you think I can help him?”

Yasha shakes her head. “No,” she says. “We want jobs here.”

Your gaze strays from Yasha and down to the tiefling, who staring down at the ground, eyes wide, softly repeating “empty”.

“‘We?’” you ask, to clarify.

“Well,” says Yasha, “I want a job here, and my friend here doesn’t seem to disagree.”

You nod, considering. “What exactly are you two proposing on doing?” you ask. “You do know that this is a _circus_ , right?”

“Sure, we do,” Yasha says. “And circuses need security, no?”

You look over at Bosun, who is helping set up the big top. Sure, he’s a good worker, and strong enough to keep out most of the riff-raff, but you can never be too careful.

“And your friend?” you ask. “I can’t imagine he’s got too many marketable talents.”

Yasha looks down at the tiefling, who is still saying ‘empty’. “He’s with me,” she says. “If you hire me, you hire both of us.”

“And who says I’ll hire either of you? I’ve already got security.”

Yasha looks into your eyes, then, and you can tell that she can tell that you’ve already made up your mind. “You’ll hire us.”

You chew the inside of your cheek, pretend to think, but you know that she’s right. Damn it all, Desmond is gonna kill you. “Alright, dammit, you’re hired. You get a cut of the pot after each town- just you, though. We pay functional people. Room and board is included, and you’ll be helping set up and take down. So will he, if he’s so able.”

Yasha nods. “More than fair.”

“Hell if I don’t know that,” you mutter, even as the oddly matched pair are already walking away. The aasimar sets the tiefling up sitting against a nearby tree, and she begins to help Bosun set up the big top.

By the time Desmond gets back, several hours later, dinner has been made and the tiefling is making friends with Toya, Mona, and Yuli, if you can call it that.

“What are you called?” Mona and Yuli ask, at the same time.

“Empty,” the tiefling says, as he eats his stew as though it’s the first meal he’s ever had.

Toya, as usual, says nothing.

The aasimar is speaking quietly with Bosun, although she keeps checking on the tiefling as though he’s a child.

“Who the hell are those two?” Desmond asks you, as soon as he walks back into the campsite with the supplies and the tax forms.

“New recruits,” you say, not making eye contact. “Security.”

“We _have_ security,” he tells you. “What, did they kill a bear for dinner?”

“Uh,” you say, “no.”

“So why did you hire them?”

“Uh,” you say again, “they have a very impressive resume?”

Desmond pauses at that.

“You’ve got a damned soft heart, you know that?” he finally says. “One of these days, you’re gonna hire someone with some sob story and we’ll wake up in the morning with less than the clothes on our backs.”

You finally look over at him, and you grin. “Shoot, there’s no way that’ll happen. I’ll always have you to protect me.”

Desmond sighs at that, and grabs a bowl of stew for himself before he comes back to sit with you.

“So, what are their names?” he asks. “We gotta fill out the tax forms, y’know.”

“The aasimar is Yasha,” you tell him.

“Yasha what?”

“Uh, Yasha the security gal.”

Desmond sighs deeply. “And the tiefling?”

“Hm. Well, funny thing about that guy.”

“Oh, for the holy fuck-damned ghost of Pelor,” Desmond says.

“Pelor is a ghost?” Bosun asks, as he walks past to refill his and the tiefling’s bowl.

“Shut up, Bosun,” Desmond says. “Anyways, the name of the tiefling.”

“Well, all he ever says is ‘empty’.”

There’s another pause. You look over to Desmond, and he is staring at you in angry disgust. “You know, you _can_ do things that make my life easier, rather than harder.”

You snort at his unintentional innuendo.

Desmond sighs. “Listen, I don’t give a shit _what_ you name him. You have to fill out the tax forms for those two. You have to make some kind of background information for him. And I will allow them to join this circus.”

“That is more than fair, and I love you,” you tell him.

You are debating your love of him that night, when you’re sitting in your office, wiggling a quill between your lip and your nose, trying to figure out what to name the tiefling and where he’s from.

“Empty, empty, empty,” you mutter to yourself. You probably can’t name him empty. “Eeeeeeemptyyyyyy. Empty. Em-pty, emp-ty, empt-y. M.T.?”

M.T. That could work. Obviously the letters have got to stand for something, but it’s a start. You fill in ‘M’ and ‘T’ on the first name and last name lines, and then tap your chin with your quill.

“Emmmmmm Teeeee,” you sound out to yourself. “Emmmmmm.”

Em. Merle? Too old-fashioned. Magnus? Too human. May? Too happy. Mickey? Too childish. Mona? Too taken.

“Emmmmm,” you say to yourself again, leaning back in your chair. “Matchstick. Merriment. Mistletoe. Miscellaneous.”

Miscellaneous is no good, you know. Absolutely no one besides you would ever be able to spell it, and the tiefling would just wind up getting called Misc, and no one wants to be called misc.

“Mollymauk?” You ask yourself, sounding it out. It’s a kind of bird, you think you remember your mother teaching you. Mollymauk, a loud obnoxious bird with a brash personality- it doesn’t suit the tiefling, but maybe that’s a _not yet_ and not a never.

“Mollymauk or Merriment,” you muse. Both are good options, both promise a bright future- falling back on elven naming traditions and beliefs.

“Merriment sounds sharp,” you mutter. “Mollymauk sounds like a candy. What to do, what to do.”

You roll both around on your tongue and realize, halfway through the third _Mollymauk_ , that you can’t name a poor simple tiefling Merriment, not when it’s nearly the holidays and everyone will be shouting that word. Nobody shouts _Mollymauk_ out of nowhere, excepting a toddler with an exceptionally unique starting vocabulary.

“Mollymauk,” you say, filling in the space after the M. You’re almost positive that you’ve misspelled it, but who’s going to give a fuck? “Hmm. T. Teeeee. Tea?”

Which reminds you, as you take a sip of your peppermint tea- it’s frozen, at this point, and you pour it out the wagon in disgust. When you pull the mug back in to check if it needs to be washed or just rubbed with a cloth, it hits you.

“Tealeaf,” you say to yourself as you wipe out your mug. “We’ve been needing a new fortune teller.”

Tealeaf promises a peaceful and content life, according to what little you know about halfling names. This could be good.

“Mollymauk Tealeaf,” you say aloud, and grin as it fits into the empty open air. You quickly fill in the space left after the T on the form, and are left staring at the rest of the blanks.

Species? Tiefling.

Occupation? “Apprentice” is a tenuous truth.

Gender? Ungiven, so a solid “N” will work.

Age? He doesn’t look a day over twenty-five, and even that’s pushing the limit. If you had to put an age to his face, you’d say maybe twenty, but the ever-present terror in his eyes makes you think that he’s so much older. But it’s the inspector’s opinion that matters, so you scrawl down twenty.

As you finish writing the zero, you stare silently at the completed tax form, suddenly realizing that you’ve given an empty man a new name, a new life, and a new name. For all you know, you’ve just destroyed whatever person the tiefling was before he started saying “empty”.

You leave the document there for Desmod, but not before you scrawl “Mollymauk Tealeaf” on the back of one of the circus leaflets and go back to your bed.

You sleep soundly for what few hours you get, from staying up late coming up with a new personhood for the tiefling- Mollymauk, now, you should remember.

But life goes on, and the circus wakes up at six in the morning to set up and fix all of its emergencies, because there’s always a hundred dozen emergencies.

After breakfast, after everyone’s had their oatmeal and Desmond has kissed you good-bye and gone off to town with the twins to file paperwork and spread the news of the circus, after everyone’s begun their jobs setting up tents and finding emergencies to tell you about, and after Yasha has arranged Mollymauk on the edge of everything, you approach him.

You notice that Yasha has her eyes on you almost immediately, but she seems to trust you enough that she doesn’t rush over to separate the two of you.

“Hello,” you say to the tiefling, because you ought to be polite even if he is simple.

“Empty,” the tiefling says- but he nods, so maybe he knows more than he’s letting on.

“It’s my understanding that you haven’t got a name,” you continue. And then, adding hastily, “unless you do, in which case just- I dunno, hold up three fingers.”

“Empty,” the tiefling says, arms still folded in his lap.

“Alright, good. Because I spent all night coming up with this one, and I expect you to appreciate it.” You hand him the handbill- carefully, because his hands have a tremble- likely due to the cold morning air, but you’ve got more than a solid dozen warm coats. “Mollymauk Tealeaf,” you say, in case the tiefling can’t actually read, “it is my pleasure to introduce you to the Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities.”

“Empty,” the tiefling says again, but his hands are gripping the leaflet tightly.

“Empty,” you agree. “Kiddo, you just let me know when you get full up, alright? I promise it’ll happen.” You rub his head between the horns, like you used to do to your nieces, and you go back to managing the circus and managing the emergencies.

“Mollymauk,” Yasha says as you pass her. “That’s a good one. Like the bird.”

You pause, a bit surprised by her knowing. “Yep,” you finally say. “Old Elven tradition. Name for what you want your kid to turn out to be.”

Yasha raises an eyebrow at you. “That’s a sweet sentiment,” she says, after a moment of pause. “I’m sure Molly appreciates it.”

You chuckle and pat her shoulder as you walk by her, back to covering emergencies that don’t include giving a man a name.


End file.
